BERK'S BLOG: From the keyboard of the "Humor Professor"

My blogs reflect my research interests and reflections on issues in teaching, PowerPoint, social media, faculty evaluation, student assessment, time management, and humor in teaching/training and in the workplace. Occasional top 10 lists may also appear on timely topics. They are intended for your professional use and entertainment. If they are seen by family members or pets, I am not responsible for the consequences. If they're not meaningful to you, let me know. ENJOY!

Sunday, November 27, 2011

How should your students or audience
perceive your presentation through their eyeballs? Based on the “sidebar” in my
previous blog, I think it should be reflexive and seamless. I should know my
material so well that it appears to flow naturally. The PowerPoint with all of
the multimedia should proceed seamlessly in terms of the content and
technology.

I admit I have been completely nuts when it came to preparing for
class and presentations. I make changes, practice, and rehearse over and over right
up until the presentation to make sure everything works. I’m never satisfied. And
then somewhere during the presentation, I commit a gaffe or there’s a
technology glitch, such as a video doesn’t play or the electricity in the
entire building goes out. I think that’s how God humbles me to let me know
who’s in charge.

IT’S ALL IN THE PREPARATION!

What may take 8 or 30 seconds to
execute could take considerable time to prepare. In retrospect, I have never
regretted the preparation for my classes and any keynote or workshop. My
students and professional audiences always deserve the best I can possibly
deliver. The impact and value to my audiences were worth it and their
appreciation and responsiveness were the pay-offs. I wanted each presentation
to be better than any previous one. Each one was my best effort at that point
in time.

WHERE DO YOU DRAW THE LINE?

So what are you going to invest in
your classes and presentations? Where are you going to draw the line? I have found
that you find the time to do what matters most--- the highest priority. That’s
the result of passion, not a job. At the end of the day, regardless of what
time-management system you use, if a task was not completed, it’s because it
simply wasn’t important enough.

As you wind down this semester in the
next month, consider how you prepare for presentations that matter, whether
classes, faculty meetings, conferences, or lectures to your kids and pets. Can
you do more or give more? I know I always can. In 2012, break your preparation
mold and notice the differences in your presentations. You’ll never go back.

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Just returning from the Lilly
Conference on College Teaching, the topic of PREPARATION arose in my sessions
and in conversations over those amazing meals. You have to draw the line
somewhere in the time and effort you spend preparing for class or a presentation
at Lilly. The problem is that my 2 sessions on “Humor & Multimedia” and “Evidenced-Based
PowerPoint” were intended to extend your preparation life as you now know it.
Adding humor, animation, music, images, and YouTube clips to your PowerPoints complicates
everything and requires much more time than you probably have. So what are you
supposed to do?

BERK 2.0 PERSPECTIVE ON PREPARATION

In my 30th year of teaching at Johns Hopkins, I was working 90-100 hours, 7 days a week, to meet obsessive-compulsive requirements. During my last 5.389 retirement years, I've worked 70-80. I bet you're thinking: "Are you CRAZY?" Probably.

EVIN LYSECHEK & BOB FOSSE

I relate to some very unusual people.
One is Evin Lysechek, who won the Gold Medal in Men’s Figure Skating at the
Vancouver Olympics. He had a reputation for working harder and practicing longer
than anyone else. A second is Bob Fosse, iconic, awarding-winning Broadway
director and choreographer, who was relentless in rehearsing his dancers. He
required dancers to practice the dance routines over a hundred times. A dancer
became ONE WITH THE DANCE. The dance was natural and reflexive; he or she didn’t
have to think about the steps. They were automatically part of them.

HOW DO YOU PREPARE?

So how should you prepare? Is your
presentation part of you or someone else? Do you struggle to remember what
comes next? Do you need cues? My next blog will present the challenge. Stay
tuned.

Saturday, October 29, 2011

How many of you have
“pick up Halloween costume” on your to-do list this weekend? My guess is,
rounded to 6 decimal points, 0! Since this blog is a service-provider to
faculty, trainers, administrators, and assorted farm animals, I thought you
might like to know what costumes are flying off the shelves at Wal-Mart into
professors little coffee/tea-stained hands. I’m sure you already know that
politicians and dead terrorists and dictators are out this year.

Can decide whether to

1. Pick
the “hot” costume2. Pick
something totally different3. Do
business-as-usual with NO costume on Mon.

Here are the Top 10
picks from the home office in Kodiak, AK, at "Costumes
for Profs" national chain, usually next door to Wal-Mart, except
where noted:

(WARNING: Despite the highly testosteronal
implications of many of these costumes, women may wear them as well.)

TOP 10

10. KNIGHT
(Full suit of armor with chainmail and sword, available in 42–50 regular only
at Men’s Warehouse)

Thursday, August 25, 2011

Social media seems to have taken over earth and, perhaps, a
few other local planets. I recently wrote an article on Netiquette—proper
rules, attitudes, and behaviors on the Internet, which will be published this
fall.

But I forgot 1 thing: a title. No. I’m kidding. That’s a
little blog humor. I forgot to mention the official style manual and resource
for writing blogs and posts on social media. For those of you in academia, you
are probably familiar with APA Publication Style, required for a bazillion
journals. In the media, the style manual has 1 less letter: AP, which stands
for Reuters. Oops! I mean Associated Press. It’s called the (Are you
ready? Isn’t this exciting?) AP Stylebook. Here’s the citation in
APA style:

It’s often referred to as the journalist's "bible." It
is a spiral-bound style manual for all writers, editors, students, and public
relations specialists. The 2011 edition providesfundamentalguidelines on
spelling, grammar, punctuation and usage, with special sections on food, social
media, business, sports and media law.

For those of you who write a lot on the Internet or for the New
York Times, it’s an essential reference. Check it out. Between APA and AP, you
should be well armed to write anything in proper format. Now if you could just
think of something worthy of that impeccable style, you’d be set.

Sunday, August 21, 2011

Are you still trying to cram, stuff, squish, or shoe horn
every bit of text onto every slide? Stop it. NOW! Read the remaining 4 steps,
then go back to shoe horning.

POWERPOINT® DIET (continued)Here are the remaining steps of the diet and a few thoughts
on its impact on learning, memory, and engagement:

7. Repeat steps 4, 5, and 6 for each slide in order to
distill the essence of each slide and draw your audience into your itty-bitty
text and focus their eyeballs on the main point (NOTE: Keep in mind your
audience may be thinking “get to the point,” if you don’t.)

8. Your draft Presentation
Deck should tell your story or convey the low-fat, meat or tofu of your
message concisely

9. Edit this deck to streamline what your audience will see to
grab their attention from the get-go and what you will say in the presentation;
draw your audience in by highlighting key words or phrases with a contrasting color, larger font, italics,
bold, etc., and inserting engagement
activities

10. Edit your Handout
Deckso it covers exactly the material you want in the format you want;
think like your audience to determine what and how the content should be
included

You now have a skinny, svelte PRESENTATION DECK for your presentation and a fat, blubbery HANDOUT DECK for your audience. You have
what you need to maximize learning, memory, and engagement of your audience
during the presentation; your audience has the amplified content to read and
study after you’ve made your points, plus space for fill-ins, exercises, and
notes during your presentation.

Now isn’t that a more efficient and effective strategy to
communicate your content than trying to present 1 monster blubbery deck on the
screen, which will be difficult to present and nearly impossible to comprehend
and remember? Think about it. The PRESENTATION DECK is like a CliffsNotes version of the handout. Who
doesn’t prefer a short, concise, right-to-the-point dose first compared to the
full-blown blubbery version?

For several articles on the research and more detailed
practices for PowerPoint® presentations, go to http://www.pptdoctor.net.

Friday, August 19, 2011

CHRONIC TEXTYITUSThe answer to the
multiple-choice item from the previous blog is “E.” It can be any of those
reasons and many others. The problem is there is too much text. If you are
afflicted with this infirmity of chronic “Textyitus,” proceed to my diet;
otherwise, you can bail.

POWERPOINT® DIETGuess what? Yup, it’s D I
E T time! Those are 4 of the most hated letters in our vocabulary. You can do this.
It requires only 10 simple steps. Once you implement this diet, you won’t even
recognize your PowerPoint®. It will be a “PowerPoint® Makeover." You'll be cured forever of Textyitus.

In order to lop off excess text from each slide so that your
audience will learn, remember, and be engaged in the content you present,
follow this step by step:

1. Start with yourtext-bloated slideswith all of the
content, exercises, fill-ins, and note spaces (If you don’t have any, get some)

2. Consider these slidesDECK #1, which will be a draft of
the handout you will distribute to your audience; they need the details to read,
study, review, take notes, and process after your presentation

4. Take each slide and ask yourself: “Self, isn’t this
bloated blog with a stupid diet metaphor over yet?” WROOONG!“What’s the point of this slide?”

5. When you figure out the main point from all of the text,
type a couple ofshort sentences or a FEW bullet pointson your clean slide to
emphasize what you want your audience to learn and remember (NOTE: 1 main point
per slide, plus any relevant engagement activity, if appropriate)

6. Edit the content on the “New & Improved” slide and,
even better,consider adding a visual image(still, animated, or video) to
punctuate your point or replace part or all of the text

OOPS! I’ve exceeded my word limit. My next blog will finish
the remaining 4 steps. You don’t want to miss the desserts on this diet.

For several articles on the research and more detailed
practices for PowerPoint® presentations, go to http://www.pptdoctor.net.

Thursday, August 18, 2011

What kind of diet could this possibly be? We all know from Dr.
Oz and the PBS fundraising-drive, brain-and-body guys (NOTE: So far no women
docs. Why?) that diets don’t work. But we do know that all diets involve
cutting back or out certain foods (aka “everything that tastes good”) and
substituting other foods (aka “food that tastes bad or has no taste,” like a
tofu sandwich on a Styrofoam rice cake, which is barf on a stick).

POWERPOINT PROBLEMSo how does this semi-humorous diet chit-chat relate to
PowerPoint®?
Great question! It has to do with the major complaint about PowerPoints®:

A June 2011 survey of the U.S. adult population (3.2% margin
of error) by IBOPE Zogby International (Allen, 2011) concluded that “death by PowerPoint®”
is a national epidemic and called for a presentation revolution. Too much text
and boring graphics top the list of frustrating and uninspired features. Can
you relate to those findings? PowerPoint® ranks as one of the most
dreaded presentation platforms, with respondents claiming they would rather
forego sex tonight (24%), do their taxes (21%), go to the dentist (20%), or
work on Saturday (18%) than have a close encounter of the PowerPoint® kind.
(QUESTION: Does that mean the other 76–82% had sex, refused to do their
taxes, let their teeth rot, and went sailing on Saturday?)

TOO MUCH TEXT

Why is there too much text on PPT slides?

A. The presenter slaps the whole presentation on the slides
and uses the text as a crutch

B. The presenter doesn’t know the material well enough to
slap only a little text on the slides

C. The presenter doesn’t prepare a separate handout with the
detailed text

D. The presenter hasn’t read my latest article, which
reviews the research on cognitive overload; the audience cannot possibly
understand and remember a bucket of text on each slide

E. ALL OF THE ABOVE

For the answer to the above test item and details on the
PowerPoint®
Diet, tune in to my next blog.

For several articles on the research and more detailed
practices for PowerPoint® presentations, go to http://www.pptdoctor.net.

Sunday, July 24, 2011

I hope you are
constantly thinking of ways to improve the effectiveness of your PowerPoints, just as I am.
It’s a battle because it’s so time intensive, but the rewards to your students or
audience are worth it. They receive the benefits in their engagement,
attention, learning, and memory of your message.

CHOOSING A TEMPLATEMy latest PowerPoint
illustration is derived from one of my keynotes on the Net Generation. The
issue is using a basic template throughout your presentation. There are
thousands of FREE templates available, so none of this involves a nickel out of
your pocket.

The artistic configuration of your template can be a boon and bane
to your presentation. It provides an attractive image for text, bullet points, visuals,
graphics, and media, but it can also restrict the placement of that content in
the available space. Only you can weigh the pluses and minuses. You don’t want
the template to pull the focus of your audience away from the key content. It
should not distract.

WHAT'S THE POINT?With that notion in
mind, once you have drafted the text, how can you add transitions, animations,
music, and videos to increase the impact of your message?

My RULE OF THUMB:
Keep asking yourself, “What’s the point of this slide? How does it contribute
to my message?”

Every element should have a purpose and contribute something UNIQUE to the effect of the slide. If you don’t know the
point of the slide, how’s your audience supposed to know? What should they
remember from what you say about each slide? Does the material on the slide
support your point?

ADDING MEDIAThis PowerPoint
(converted to video) contains only a few opening slides from a presentation. Consider
how the music, especially lyrics, animation, and video clip are used to make
several points about the Net Generation:

You can do this with your PowerPoint software and free templates. There are no tricks involved.This entire process can be done by YOU cost-free. Consider your templates without any animation or media; just dead words. Media can create the difference between an unforgettable and forgettable PowerPoint.

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Dear Conference/Meeting Planners and Directors of Centers
and Faculty Development:

Have you picked your speakers for your fall 2011–2015 events
or next decade yet? No? Then you need to get on the stick.

Have I got a speaker
for you! I just saw him in Calgary and San Diego and he will blow your beach
chair right out from under you.

With all of the financial cutbacks, you may be crunched for
funds to import super-star speakers, but you can consider those lower on the
food chain or not even on the food chain, but dangling on a hook like bait.

For example, I know this speaker personally (he sends me
birthday e-mails) who will work with you to cut expenses, plus he will pay your
mother’s social security in August if the President doesn’t.

This means he will

1. sleep in your garage (with a bucket of ice if you don’t have ac) instead of
a hotel, but not before washing your vehicle,2. fly WITH Southwest’s free baggage,3. hitch a ride from the airport to your garage,4. walk to his home airport (25 mi) to save mileage and parking fees,5. deliver his handout to faculty door-to-door,6. eat just navel oranges & Fig Newtons,7. drink tap water only, and8. not tip anyone.

Those sacrifices can make a major dent in the expenses. He
will also slash honoraria under 5 digits to fit your budget. Should I
continue? Is this a dream come true?

Anyway, he speaks on 17 topics on humor and multimedia, Net
Generation, multigenerational classroom/workplace, stress reduction, student
assessment, faculty evaluation, and PowerPoint. Abstracts are available on his
Website (www.ronberk.com). His most
popular topics appear on his LinkedIn profile (www.linkedin.com/in/ronberk) and
2011 brochure.

Testimonials by buckets of clients, some of whom may be your
peers, and a few extraterrestrials are listed on the brochure and posted on
those sites FYI.

If you would like further information, please contact the
speaker, who is currently preparing his PowerPoint in a garage in Biloxi, which
is in Wyoming, while sucking key limes.

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President & CEO at Ronald A. Berk, LLC, & PowerPoint DOCTOR

I am currently Professor Emeritus, Biostatistics and Measurement, and former Assistant Dean for Teaching at The Johns Hopkins University. After 30 years of teaching and research, I left Hopkins on June 30, 2006, to pursue speaking and writing fulltime.
I've been a teacher, writer, and researcher for 42 years, from elementary school teacher to university professor and assistant dean to professional speaker. I am still writing articles (150+) and books (13), which are posted on my Website (www.ronberk.com), and speaking to faculty about humor and multimedia in teaching, assessment, faculty evaluation, and stress management, and to students about time management, stress reduction, finding your passion in a career, and test-taking skills in the U.S., Canada, and Europe, Eastern Europe, Asia, and the Persian Gulf.